iPad

iOS

Jailbreak

Cydia

Typing on a small mobile screen like that of the iPhone can be very cumbersome, so why not decrease the workload and let the software help you with the typing? A new jailbreak tweak called Octopus Keyboard by iOS developer Mario Hros will allow the keyboard to guess at the words you are most likely trying to spell so you don’t have to manually type those words all the way out. With the way the keyboard works, you might feel like you’re typing like an Octopus – hence the name.

The Octopus Keyboard uses the power of a dictionary to start auto-spelling words based on what you are typing into the text field. Any suggestions that the tweak can come up with are displayed above the letter that would be the next in the sequence of spelling a word. For example, if you type "nex" the word "next" would appear over the letter T as shown above. To have Octopus Keyboard automatically spell out a word suggestion instead of you having to type a word manually, you can swipe up on the key with the word suggestion above it – this is what might make you feel like you are typing the way an Octopus would.

Even though the word "next" is a small example and most people wouldn't mind tapping on the letter T instead of having Octopus Keyboard spell out the word next for you when you have "nex" already in the text field, the tweak works wonders with longer words that could save you anywhere between two and ten keystrokes per word. After some long use, Octopus Keyboard would save you a lot of time in typing. It also works in just about every application where you can enter text – both in Apple's stock applications and in third party applications.

Octopus Keyboard comes with a preferences pane that you will find in the Settings application where you can adjust the options of the tweak to make your own use of the tweak as personalized as you would like it to be:

The tweak comes with a kill switch that allows you to enable and disable the Octopus Keyboard on demand. You can also:

manage your dictionaries (U.S. English by default)

adjust how the text above the keyboard letters will appear

choose how far you need to swipe up on the keyboard before a recommended word is typed out for you

change the threshold of the recommended words

adjust options for how the keyboard will learn the words you use

As a great tweak with a ton of options, Octopus Keyboard does a great job of making typing a lot less cumbersome from iOS and the recommendations are extremely accurate from our testing with the tweak. It supports most major languages except for Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. Anyone that is a slower typer would want to give this tweak a try because it can increase your typing speed if you are constantly text-messaging people or writing on social networking sites.